I’ve been using SmartThings for a few weeks. Prior to SmartThings, I had a number of Z-Wave lights, a Yale lock controlled by a Vera Lite. I’ve had zero problems getting all of my things connected to the Smart Things hub. Where it seems to fall short is with the Cooper Aspire 3-way dimmer and perhaps someone has a solution. In Vera, you could setup a group ID/association between the master switch and the auxilliary switch. Prior to doing this, the aux switch would not function at the switch. Once it was completed, you’d have functionality at the switch and through the app. With SmartThings, it sees and adds both switches. It’s also able to control the master. The aux switch does cannot be controlled, which is fine, but it’s also not working on the wall. It so happens, this is a switch we use often, so it’s troubling that it is not working manually.

The switches in question are the : Cooper Aspire RF9534 and RF9542.

These were expensive switches, so I’m not excited about the prospect of swapping them out.

On the tile for the aux switch, click the little gear on the upper right. Is there a refresh tile on the secondary screen? If so, tap it and see if the main tile updates. Try it a couple of times while switching the aux dimmer on the wall.

@meinck Sorry, we haven’t added support for this kind of accessory switch or a general association function, yet.

I can think of two possibilities for getting this working for you now.

If you still have the VeraLite and aren’t using it, you could join it as a secondary controller to the SmartThings hub, and it should be able to see and control all the devices on the hub’s Z-Wave network. Then you could set up the association like you did before. To join it, just go to add a device in SmartThings as usual and click “Copy Z-Wave network from a master controller” on the VeraLite. Be patient because the transfer can take a while.

Another option is to make a custom DeviceType that would let you input the target device and then could send the proper association command. You’d have to get your hands dirty with the SmartThings IDE, but I can help with the code.

Thanks @duncan. Thinking about swapping out those 3-way switches, given the problematic nature of the configuration. It’s no bargain, even with Vera. I may just opt for a Philips Hue setup in that room. I appreciate the offer.

@duncan - Any updates on any support for the Cooper Aspire auxiliary switches and the whole association function? I’m running into the same issue with a Cooper Aspire RF9501 Master Switch and a RF9517 Accessory Switch.

Spent a few hundred on cooper dimmers for low voltage switches at the same time I bought the ST hub. Heard these were the best of the best. They handle electronic and magnetic transformers. Not happy to find out st doesn’t support the best zwave products out there. Too late for me to return these. Is there a chance they will be supported or not? Just need to know so I can make some decisions. Support for LED dimming is a major. Easier to find an HA platform than the dimmers.

Have you tried the minimote device to perform the aux switch association? While it sucks to have to buy something else, it’s not too expensive and it’s a nice remote on its own. Worked with my linear(evolve) switches.

Any update on this Aspire RF support? Also, if the master switch is supported by ST then could you run a second master instead of an auxillary switch in a 3-way circuit and control both switches with ST?

Thanks Gilbert. I’m new to home automation, but it seems odd to me that a Z-Wave compliant device like the Cooper Aspire series dimmer switches don’t work with ST right out of the box. I thought that Z-Wave was a uniform protocol, like 802.11g or something, so any hub that can ‘speak’ Z-Wave will be able to speak to other Z-Wave devices.

You should be able to use the standard cooper zwave dimmer or on/off switch, however if you want to use the scene/accessory switch, that isn’t currently supported. In some cases, you pair the accessory/virtual 3 way switches directly to the master switch (this is the case for the linear and evolve models).

Thanks Gilbert. If I read that correctly it means that I can only use the Cooper Z-Wave main switch to control a single circuit i.e. I can’t control any 3-way or 4-way circuits, making it useless for controlling lights in my house where I only have two circuits without 3/4-way switches, and they are in areas I don’t need to control anyway. Looks like I’m gonna have to wait for better ST compatibilty/products, which hopefully will be clearer after this week’s CES.
Cheers
Simon

You can still use it but you’ll need another remote to associate the master and slave switches (at least this is the way the evolve and linear work) like a minimote. There’s a few videos on YouTube that show you how to do this. We’ll look into adding better documentation on these types of switches as we officially support them.

@thegibertchan I don’t know if you’ve seen the work that the community has done to integrate zwave scene controllers like the vizia 4 button and enerwave 7 button, but I think they had to program in zwave association commands to fake connections so the hub could see button presses. Maybe this same idea could be used to programmatically force the pairing or connection for these and other accessory zwave switches without purchasing the minimote?

I posted a device type that will directly associate the accessory to the switch but it’s still a bit rough:

duncan:

Here’s my work towards an Accessory Switch device type, maybe it could be of some help: https://gist.github.com/mckeed/182cc9689299e20af17b It’s set up to allow either entering the device id of the target switch in the device preferences, or you could make a companion SmartApp that lets you select the accessory and target switch and just calls accessory.associate(target). I’ve just been too super busy to test this and finish up proper support for these, sorry.